Madagascar 2: Escape to Africa is a family orientated animated film full of racist, sexist, homophobic, pro- colonialist propaganda. And on top of that it’s really, really boring.

Steven Spielberg’s DreamWorks repeats in Madagascar 2 (sequel to 2005’s Madagascar) its Shrek (2001, 2004, 2007) formula. His stripes alone separate Chris Rock’s revival of Marty the Zebra from Eddie Murphy’s Donkey.

Civilized city slickers meet crazy ol’ country savages, again, in an identical story and setting to the first Madagascar film. Alex, Marty, Melman, and Gloria (lion, zebra, giraffe and hippopotamus, respectively), are still trying to escape the wild island after their ship wrecked on course from Central Park Zoo to Kenya and unfortunately they didn’t all drown.

Unlike Shrek, Madagascar 2 relies on reinforcing stale racial, cultural and social stereotypes for its humour, and in 2008 that’s painful to watch. Africa is a savage world of hunts, fights, bone through the nose witch-doctors and throwing live sacrifices into volcanoes, which suppresses delicate young Alake the Lion’s (Ben Stiller) pirouetting and Marcel Marceau impressions.

Alternatively in the Land of Opportunity the lucky young lion had been anglicised into Alex and given freedom – of a podium within the bolted confines of a zoo - to express his true self through camp prancing for crowds as The King of New York.

Like the rest of Madagascar 2 Alex’s back story is an absurd mash up of two very different American tales by white film makers for their imagined black target audience; part emigration and the American Dream, part romancing of the horrific suffering of slaves.

In the confusion are the many  dead-ends in this film that try to be its moral message (it must have one, it’s for kids). Gloria the Hippo (Jada Pinkett Smith) eventually opens her mind beyond only dating other hippos and she gets together with Melman the Giraffe (David Schwimmer). But only after meeting the muscle and 70s chest hair that is African hippo Casanova, Moto Moto (will.i.am).

The visual stereotyping is bad, but writer Etan Cohen’s script will have you punching the parent next to you. In a thick, Southern US accent Moto Moto delivers the lines, “The name’s so good you gotta say it twice”, and “You’re huuuge”, the latter repeated to Gloria as compliment and sole conversation piece. Gloria’s brave move is nothing more than her sticking to her own neurotic, New York kind.

Cohen also wrote Tropic Thunder, a film that has attracted controversy from some critics who say the film’s ironic treatment of white actors playing black parts is racist. The outlandish and overt caricaturing in Tropic Thunder fulfilled its intended role of attracting attention to Hollywood’s sometimes bizarre casting; sadly Madagascar 2 is the real thing behind the parody.

Having spent most of two films trying to leave, the zoo animals decide to stay in ogaa-booga land with the wild animals that throughout Madagascar 2 are ‘proved’ to be less intelligent, more aggressive, less courageous and more vulgar than their civilised American counterparts.

Why? Because Africa changes to fit around them. None of the zoo animals learn or grow of change by the end of the sequel. They crash land in and save the helpless natives from death by drought. They are heroes. They can stay there and dance, and mate with each other, and spit water in the air (Marty’s trick) and it’ll be just like they never left New York. Come on kids, can anyone say neo-colonialist empire building?

Check out the times for this film and other releases at Kingston Odeon.